


future spotter

by arcanamagnus



Series: Peaceful Mode [6]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Visions, choosing a successor is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 19:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arcanamagnus/pseuds/arcanamagnus
Summary: Cheetor has visions. This might mean more than he can handle.





	future spotter

**Author's Note:**

> Eukaris plot starts...
> 
> I think I might be writing too much about Artifacts.

Onyx Prime had her concerns about many, many things. Almost single-handedly watching over her people’s mental and spiritual health certainly took a toll on a mech. The brief conversations she had with the spirits of beyond served to take the weight off her spark, but some troubles insisted on being carried. 

Her current concern came in the shape of a potential successor. He’d been forged from Chela’s latest coronal mass ejection, some 25 vorns ago, and had recently started showing signs of extrasensorial attunement after a head injury. He came to Onyx after noticing that his new strange daydreams seemed to come true, and she had no concrete answer to give him.

So she sent him to the spiders. Between Cogwheel and Blackarachnia they’d find out if these were true visions or just coincidence. And then she could let the Mask test him.

But Cheetor seemed like a promising young mech, so she’d definitely keep an eye on him either way.

* * *

Crossblades sat with her ankle over her knee on a rock bench as she watched the spiders bicker over the cat. Getting the two leaders of the health committee to agree on anything was hard on an average day, but throwing them a maybe-magic maybe-medical situation had their energon boiling like nobody’s business. She’d volunteered to simply escort Cheetor for his appointment with Cogwheel, but Blackarachnia couldn’t wait for her turn to pick his mind about the visions.

“We  _ need _ a structural scan of his brain module before a content analysis, Blackarachnia,” Cogwheel insisted, “Who knows what damage might be in there!”

“I could ferret the damage  _ and _ check for clairvoyance at the same time if you’d just let me inject him,” Blackarachnia argued.

And they’d been at it for  _ breems _ . She’d pretty much resigned herself to waiting a joor or two for them to begin doing something useful. Cheetor, though, had apparently had enough:

“Whoa whoa, can we  _ please _ get on with all this? No offense to you, Miss ‘Arachnia, but I’d rather a scan clear me from an injection than the other way around. Doc Lady? Can we go get this over with?”

Blackarachnia sounded an irritated added ninth, but didn’t protest. She took a seat in the waiting room besides Crossblades, arms crossed and a quiet high-pitched noise buzzing from her vocaliser. 

_ Young bots _ , Crossblades thought,  _ always on a rush _ . And Blackarachnia  _ was _ young — then again, to millennia-old Crossblades,  _ everyone _ was young —, but her unparalleled skills in mnemology and divination made it easy to forget.

The work of Arachnicons was a mysterious thing; their unique blend of medicine and spirituality held them in the Prime’s favour. Though she didn't reject the standard Paradronian method, Onyx tended to refer suppliants in need of more than she could give to her trusty spiders.

“Why did she send  _ you  _ to watch over the pussycat?” Blackarachnia asked, finally out of her slump, “Thought you civil guard had better things to do, like shoo off a snapping egret from someone’s backyard or settle custody of a bow-wood pepper tree.”

“Onyx needed me to stop hounding Esmeral about making a move on  _ her _ kitty cat,” Crossblades grinned. 

Blackarachnia chittered in annoyance.

“Alright, real talk, Leozack was going to volunteer to escort him and I trust the mech as far as I can throw him.”

“Ugh, I hate that jet.”

“Don’t we all?” Crossblades leaned back, “Wouldn’t wish his drivel on anyone. Can’t fathom how Depth Charge manages.”

Blackarachnia started a dirty comment on just  _ how _ Depth Charge managed, but was interrupted by Cheetor and Cogwheel’s return. Cheetor’s difficult to ignore harmonics flittered between nervous, excited and terrified.

“He's clear. His sympathetic routines are overactive, but that is par for the course with his alt class," Cogwheel sighed, "He's all yours."

* * *

The dark of the room used by the Arachnicon fateweavers and mnemologists had Cheetor’s fur standing on end. Well, that and Blackarachnia’s cold pedipalps preparing the back of his neck for injection. He’d never had a reading done or needed an assisted defrag, so this was his first experience having someone else in his databanks.

“Stop shivering, cat. I don’t want to have to paralyse you.”

“You don’t want to have to  _ what _ ???”

Blackarachnia sighed, seeing that there was no way this was going to go easy.

“Just be still and it’ll be over sooner.”

And with that she quickly inserted the needles.

Cheetor’s brain was a mess, to put it lightly, but the webs of his processing trees were easy enough to follow for an expert like Blackarachnia. She spun the shakiest, newest thread, pulled from the crux of the unbelievably silly accident with a large falling fruit from a tree. The program that ran it was instantly recognisable, similar to Blackarachnia’s own.

She induced a test run of this possible clairvoyant program, pulling a random variable from the overactive anxiety trees, and quickly disengaged from Cheetor’s processor.

“Tell me what you see. Don’t turn your optical feed on. What you  _ really  _ see.”

"What in the world are you- Oh. Whoa."

"What is it? What do you see?"

"I have no idea," Cheetor pressed his hands to his face, "I can never tell what these are!"

"Good. I can't either," Blackarachnia explained, "Not without a thread to follow."

"So, uh, what's that mean for me?"

"It means you're honest. And it means that maybe Onyx is right about you, pussycat."

* * *

The Triptych Mask’s electromagnetic field tingled at Onyx’s back from where it rested in the back of her cave. It made her wings bat in unease, not used to such bursts of energy from the Artifact unless it was releasing sparks — and even then it was always in small peaks, not continuously. 

It had done something like this once before, when she'd considered taking in a protégé. Blackarachnia’s legitimate gift of prophecy, like Cheetor’s unconfirmed one now, and the possibilities of what could be done if that power was augmented by Farsight had fascinated her.

It was a pity when Triptych found her wanting, unsuitable. To put it bluntly, the Mask just hadn’t liked Blackarachnia. 

Onyx wouldn't deny her potential though, so she kept an eye on her among her fellow mnemologists. She was pleased to see Esmeral promote her to head Fateweaver.

In the present, the Mask’s glowering seemed sharper than it had been last time, as if chastising Onyx for wanting to pass it on.

"Knock knock, Prime," Crossblades announced as she pushed aside the vegetable tarp that separated Onyx’s home from the outside world, “Got you a special delivery of psychic cheetah.”

“I take it he’s been confirmed, then?” Onyx shook herself out of her troubles, but couldn’t help the anxious twitching of her wings and tail.

“He’s got a precog program alright. Jumpy kid though, so ease up on the doom and gloom.”

“I do not—”

“Come in, kiddo! Let’s see what you’re made of.”

And Crossblades unceremoniously pulled a spooked Cheetor into Onyx’s little lair.

“Onyx Prime, ma’am,” he greeted shakily.

“No need for formalities here, little cat,” she vocalised a warm jazzy tune, “Crossblades, if you may, leave us alone for a bit?”

Crossblades answered a “Sure, Boss Bot,” and left as abruptly as she came.

“It’s good to have you here, Cheetor.”

“It’s, uh, a little scary to be here, honestly,” he fidgeted in place, “Not scarier than the spiders, but still, uh, pretty scary.”

“You need not be scared. Triptych will not hurt you. It did not hurt Blackarachnia, and it will not hurt you even if it rejects you.”

“I know that, objectively,” Cheetor said, following Onyx further into the cave, “But Galvatron…”

“Galvatron tried to take by force a power that wasn’t his and was punished accordingly,” she replied, colder than she’d been up till then, but quickly mellowed, “You will approach  _ this _ power from a place of humility, and it shall accept or deny you with fanfare, but no explosions.”

They finally arrived at the end of the cave, where the Triptych Mask lay upon a small pedestal.

“Choose whichever one you feel drawn to.”

Cheetor hesitated, but ultimately reached for the Artifact. He held it in his hands and stared at it for a few kliks, unsure of what to do. 

Then the Mask spoke to him, in a way. He lifted it to his face, and placed the bottom mask, Mournsong, upon his optics.

His vision burst into a flash of blue.


End file.
